


And Birds Fly Over The Field

by slash4femme



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Post-Season/Series Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 21:19:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16840618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slash4femme/pseuds/slash4femme
Summary: By all rights Kakashi should have been dead on a battlefield a long time ago, his body rotting in the cold mud. But he has made peace with the fact that he won’t be getting what he deserves. Instead, he will have a future full of brightness and warmth, Gai’s loud laughter and the village at peace.It would be good, very good.Except now.Where he’s standing in a rice field in the rain looking at a child.





	And Birds Fly Over The Field

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Kakagai Week 2017. The prompt was 'future.'

When Kakashi had stepped down as Hokage he’d known what the future would look like. It would be with books to read and sleeping late, head pillowed on Gai’s wide chest, and happy dogs with bellies in need of rubbing. **  
**

That future is not what he deserves he knows that. By all rights he should have been dead on a battlefield a long time ago, his body rotting in the cold mud. But he has made peace with the fact that he won’t be getting what he deserves. Instead, he will have a future full of brightness and warmth, Gai’s loud laughter and the village at peace.

It would be good, very good.

Except now.

Where he’s standing in a rice field in the rain looking at a child.

She is dirty and small. Tiny hands gripping the handle of a tantō as tight as she can. It still wavers in her grasp. Spread out around them are the bodies of the bandits who would have killed her or sold her into slavery. But now it’s just the two of them facing each other.

Kakashi sinks lower into his cloak and wonders what Gai is doing back at the hot springs where they are staying the night. Drinking a cup of hot sake while watching the rain and wonder where the hell Kakashi is, probably.

The girl is covered in splatters of blood. Her breath comes in great, ragged gasps. Kakashi watches the tantō waver again in her hands.

Slowly he raises his own hand.

“Shoo.” He says and waggles his fingers at her.

She does not scurry off into the rice field as he’d been hoping she would. Instead she just stares at him from huge, dark eyes.

Kakashi sighs and shrugs his cloak up again. “There’s a town a little ways from here.” He says. “Farmers mostly but they’re good people. There will be someone there who will take you in.”

He turns, prods one of the corpses with his foot then shrugs and steps around it,heading back the way he’d come.

Back towards Gai, a hot meal and bed.

~*~

“There’s a kid outside looking for you.” Mairi says.

Kakashi isn’t up yet.

Gai is of course, up, dressed and tucking into a large breakfast but Kakashi is still wrapped up in his blanket faced pressed into the futon.

“Ugh, no, she must mean someone else.” Kakashi says only moving enough to tuck the blanket closer around himself.

“She said tall, white hair, mask. Killed a whole group of bandits single handed.” Mairi crosses her arms over her chest. “Sounds like you to me. And she did a whole kicking, punching routine to demonstrate how you took the bandits out. It seems unlikely that was what you actually did but it was pretty cute.”

“Nope.” Kakashi buries his face deeper into the futon. “Must have been someone else.”

Gai’s big hand settles on his back solid and warm.

Kakashi makes a happy chuffing noise and rolls towards that warmth.

“Kakashi.” Gai says. “Where did you go last night? Does it have something to do with this child?”

Kakashi rolls over and blinks up at him. He takes in Gai’s grave expression, the determined set of his mouth and shoulders.

“Fine.” He says and gets up, although he takes the blanket with him, still wrapped around his shoulders like a bulky, padded cape. 

He pushes open the door and stalks out to the front courtyard.

Sure enough the kid is there waiting for him. The rain from the night before has turned to a fine snow.

The kid looks just as dirty and bloodstained as the last time Kakashi had seen her. She is wearing a pair of wooden geta now though where before she had been barefoot and has her hair pulled up untidily into a sort of top knot, so that’s new.

“You!” She jumps up from where she’d been squatting as soon as she sees him pointing a finger at Kakashi’s chest. “You are a shinobi, a man without honor, unlike my noble samurai ancestors!” She takes a moment to thump her chest with one tiny, dirty fist for emphasis.

“Uh.” Kakashi says. He’s not going to argue with her assessment of his character but on the other hand he seems to have been woken up and dragged out of bed just to be berated by an angry child. It seems unfair.

“Still.” She goes back to pointing at him in a pose that looks suspiciously Good-Guy-esque. “You saved my life and my family’s honor yesterday and for that I owe you a great debt. In order to repay it I swear that from this day forth I will serve you as my lord.”

She drops to her knees, pulling her tantō from her filthy obi and presents it to him with all due formality.

“Huh.” Kakashi says. He looks from her to the tantō, then steps back inside, closing the door as he does, and heads back to the room and his warm futon.

This is what happens when you do something good he reflects on the way. See a band of bandits about to kill a child, save that child, next thing you know that child is swearing fealty to you.

Story of his life really.

“So?” Gai says as soon as he re-enters the room. “What of the child?”

“Yeah that’s the kid I saved last night.” Kakashi rewrapped himself in the blanket. “Turns out she’s descended from samurai and now wants me to be her feudal lord. Gai I’m really too tired to deal with this right now. Wake me up when it’s over.” He flops back onto the futon.

“Kakashi.” Gai says and he can hear the sigh behind the word but it’s not pressing enough of an issue to make raising his head or opening his eyes necessary.

Gai says something quiet to Mairi but Kakashi’s already drifting off at that point and doesn’t hear what it is.

~*~

Next time he opens his eyes the first thing he sees the kid sitting at the table.

She’s clean now, her kimono is no longer blood spattered although still as ragged as ever. She’s ploughing through a bowl of rice the size of her head.

Kakashi sits up.

“Shinobi!” She whirls and points at him with her chopsticks. “You are finally awake! Good.”

“Aren’t you support to be subservient and respectful towards your lord?” Kakashi says, crawling from the futon to the table. “Or at least nice.”

He feels around on the table until he finds a sake bottle he suspects Gai left there for just this occasion. His entire life he’s never been much of a drinker but that was before he retired and gained his very own samurai. 

“You’re clean.” He notes as he pours. "And inside.“ 

"Indeed.” She goes back to stuffing rice in her mouth, until her cheeks puff up like a squirrel. “Your friend brought me inside, gave my a bath, washed my clothes, then provided me with this delicious food.” She swallows. “I like your friend. He’s a fine man of honor.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that over the years.” Kakashi looks around for his man of honor but sadly Gai is nowhere to be found.

Kakashi was just starting to get up to mount a search when the door is pushed open and Gai comes through carrying a tray on his lap.

“Kakashi! You are awake at least!” Gai booms happily.

“Hmm.” Kakashi agrees for less enthusiastically.

If they had been alone he’d definitely try to get Gai to go back to bed with him.

They are not alone though, still the issue of the child watching him from around her rice bowl.

Gai puts the tray on the table and starts handing out bowls. There’s miso, rice, natto and roasted fish for Kakashi, miso and more rice for the kid.

The rice and miso in front of her quickly disappears.

Kakashi waits until she looks bored, like she might scamper off somewhere before reaching for his chopsticks. 

“You let the pup in I see.”

She turns a scowl on him. “I am not a pup! I am a fearsome samurai!”

She makes to lunge at him, Kakashi doesn’t hesitate to grab her and hold her at arm’s length. He doesn’t want her upsetting the bowls on the table after all.

Gai’s laugh rolls through the room like thunder. His big hand comes down and pluck the child from Kakashi’s grasp.

“That maybe little one but all great wolves were pups first.” He tosses her into the air, which gives him a split second to strike a seated pose, hands on hips, chest buffed out.

It also gives Kakashi a split second to get his rice and natto from the bowl into his mouth and his mask back up before Gai catches her neatly.

She stares at him, eyes huge, like he’s just performed the greatest feat imaginable.

Gai puts her back on her feet and pats her on the head. “Kakashi is an excellent master and you will learn to be a great warrior.” He says.

Kakashi sighs, “don’t encourage her Gai.”

“Well, she cannot be left here on her own.” Gai turns to him. “I asked in the village and she has no family to go back to. Besides it’s snowing out.”

“We can’t just pick up every stray we come across,” Kakashi says although he knows he’s going to lose this one.

He looks across the room at her. She has one hand tucked into the front of her ragged kimono as she tours the room, looking at things and trying to peak out into the courtyard. She walks with a little bit of a swagger as if she really were from a great samurai from one of the old clans.

He can feel his lips turn up in a small smile behind his mask.

She looks like she’s probably about five.

He had been a killer at her age, a full-fledged shinobi. She is untrained though, without battle experience. He could tell that when the bandits attacked.

She reminds him very much of Naruto, with her scrawny underfed limbs and her loud posturing that hid the fact that she is far too unused to being cared for or loved.

A child trying to find her own meaning in a world that subscribed none to her, or maybe far too much.

He thinks about the samurai clans that used to live here, how they were both respected and feared by the townsfolk. Needed for the protection their military strength provided but also resented for bringing strife and clan war into these farming communities. Gai is right, as a living reminder of that, she would not be welcomed here. Kakashi should have known better than to think she would.

His thoughts stray back to Naruto again. When Naruto had been her age Kakashi hadn’t been there. He’d waisted too many years in ANBU and because of that he’d let Minato and Kushina’s son down.

“Kakashi.”

Gai’s voice snaps him out of his train of thought altogether. He looks over at Gai who gives him a soft smile, one hand landing on Kakashi’s knee.

“I am not suggesting we keep her forever,” Gai says, voice low so they will not be overheard. “But we can take her back to Konoha. There is bound to be a clan to take her in. If no one else I am sure Lee would be glad to have another young student at the dojo.”

“Alright.” Kakashi reaches for the bowl of miso while her back is turned. “We will need to buy her some news clothes though.”

He stands and goes over to her.

“What’s your name pup?”

She huffs angrily at him. “I’m not a pup, and it’s Yui, Akashi Yui.”

“Akashi Yui.” He says formally. “My name is Hatake Kakashi and I have decided to accept your service to me and my clan. As long as you swear to defend my husband, Maito Gai, as well.” He nods at Gai.

Her gaze goes between the two of them but than she nods seriously.

“I swear it.”

“Good. Then as my liegewoman you need better clothes.” 

She jumps up, arms pinwheeling in excitement. “A real kimono!”

“Sure.”

He needs to put some clothes on himself so he lets Gai take Yui out while he gets dressed.

When he finds them they are talking with Mairi.

“Sarutobi Mairi.” Gai is saying as Kakashi walks up to them. “She too is sworn to protect us. So you two will now be comrades. Sisters in arms.”

In Mairi’s presence Yui seems to have momentarily forgotten that she is a fearsome samurai. Instead she gazes up at Mairi, both small arms wrapped around one of Gai’s huge biceps as trying to hide behind his bulk.

Kakashi knows that worshipful look in her eyes and suppresses a smile.

Well and good. Mairi is a better role model for Yui than he is.

The head out of the inn together as a group. Yui runs ahead her getas clacking with every move. Mairi follows her, hands in pockets, her postures seemingly at ease even as she stays alert scanning their surroundings for possible threats.

Kakashi matches his pace to Gai’s a little ways behind them. Gai is moving at what passes for a leisurely stroll in his chair. Even if it’s lighter frame means that Gai can move almost as fast in it as he could without it if he really wanted to.

Yui stops in front of a shop displaying clothes in all different colors and patterns. Mairi steps forward to speak with the older woman running the shop to ask about the possability of a fitting.

Kakashi is willing to pay for the clothes but he’s more than happy to let Mairi handle the arrangements.

He reaches out and brushes his knuckles, ever so briefly, against the soft skin at the back of Gai’s neck.

Gai looks around at him, eyes gone a little wide at the touch.

“Sorry.” Kakashi says, keeping his voice low. “I meant this to be a time for just the two of us, to relax without distractions.”

Gai’s eyes crinkles a little bit as he beams up at Kakashi. “It isn’t your fault our plans seem to have changed. Besides this way we get to help out a precious, youthful soul. What could be better than that?”

“Well …” Kakashi says thinking about warm futons, hot springs and Gai’s big hands.

He looks back over at where Yui and Mairi seem to be arguing about different kinds of cloth and kimono styles.

Maybe this is a good thing Kakashi thinks. He should really open the Hatake clan house back up anyway, fix the roof, replant the garden. Gai is right as well, Lee really will be thrilled to have someone to teach taijutsu to. And it will be good for his pack to have a pup underfoot again. Good for the older dogs to have someone to take care of. 

Not that he’s planning on them keeping her of course.

But still …


End file.
